UA:PBC, the Ukrainian national broadcaster has announced today that it will continue its partnership with STB in its quest to find the 2019 Ukrainian Euovision representative. The 2019 Ukrainian national selection is scheduled to be held next February and will consist of three shows.

UA:PBC and STB have signed a three year contract and will co-host the Ukrainian national selection until 2021 extending their current three year partnership to a further three years. The two broadcasters have already kicked off the preparations for the upcoming 2019 Ukrainian national selection. Ruslan Kvinta will continue as the musical producer of the show, whilst Serhiy Prytula will continue as the master of ceremonies.

STB will be be responsible to cover the entire costs of hosting the 2019 Ukrainian national selection including organizing the event, conducting and broadasting the live shows. In 2018 STB and UA:PBC jointly broadcast the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest live from Lisbon for the very first time.

STB has also taken the initiative to support the Ukrainian representative financially on his/her journey to Eurovision and has offered to take care of the artist’s pre Eurovision preparation and travel to Tel Aviv.

The three jury members will be unveiled in due course. The 2019 Ukrainian national selection will be simultaneously broadcast on UA:PBC and STB. The dates of the national selection have been confirmed:

• 09/02/2019- Semi-final 1
• 16/02/2019- Semi-final 2
• 23/02/2019- Grand Final

The 2019 Ukrainian national final has been set on 23 February 2019. The 2019 Ukrainian ESC entry and hopeful will be determined via public/jury deliberation.

Mr. Zurab Alasania (UA:PBC CEO) says:

Taking into account the experience of previous years, we are happy to continue our cooperation with STB, as they are confident that Ukraine will be represented in the best way, young artists will receive a rating platform, spectators will be satisfied with high-quality shows, and voting for a representative of Ukraine will be honest and open.

The youngest European public broadcaster is currently in a state of transformation and under conditions of 50% underfunding, we believe that our cooperation with the commercial channel STB is economically feasible for the Eurovision project: we can’t produce such a high quality show on our own.

Mr. Vladimir Borodiansky (STB General Director) says:

Three years ago, we began our cooperation with UA: PBC, STB  set itself the goal of creating a mega show where every professional artist could showcase himself to Europe. And we succeeded, because in the past three years the national selection has introduced many new names to the public.

It has also given a successful start to many young artists, and the selection itself has become the main musical event of the year and attracted the attention of successful producers and sponsors. This is a very decent result we are proud of.

Therefore, we want to continue our cooperation with UA: PBC, focusing on production and creating what STB can do best – large-scale television events such as the national selection for Eurovision.

Ukraine in Eurovision

Ukraine debuted at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2003 with Oleksandr Ponormayov‘s Hasta la vista, and has won the competition twice in 2004 (Ruslana) and 2016 (Jamala). The country has hosted the contest twice in its majestic capital Kyiv in 2005 and 2017.

Ukraine is one of the most successful countries in the Eurovision Song Contest and has so far not missed out competing in the Grand Final. The Eastern European nation has competed in Europe’s favourite television show every year since its debut with the exception of 2015 when the country withdrew from the competition.

The Ukraians have made it 9 times in the top 10 of the leader board in their 15 ESC participations, including 2 victories ( 2004, 2016), 2 2nd placings (2007, 2008), 1 3rd placing (2013) and 4th placing (2011).

In 2018 Ukraine selected its Eurovision act via its epic national selection Vidbir, Melovin was crowned the winner and won the golden ticket to Lisbon with his entry Under the ladder, achieving a 17th place in the Grand Final.